Austria Telecom Aims to Cover 25% of Population with LTE by December

Incumbent operator lays claim to Austria's biggest high-speed mobile network, fiber backhaul updates on progress.
Telekom Austria's domestic mobile unit A1 aims to extend LTE coverage to a quarter of the population by the end of 2012, it emerged on Monday.

The operator launched commercial LTE services in October 2010 and now boasts the broadest coverage in the country according, to an audit Carried out by Poland-based Systemics-PAB that Telekom Austria was only too willing to cite.

"Our Efforts to expand our network to meet ever-rising demand are paying off," said Telekom Austria CEO Hannes Ametsreiter's group, in a statement. "By year-end 2012, more than one quarter of the Austrian population will be able to use this ultra fast data technology."

Monday's news follows the announcement in August that Telekom Austria had awarded a contract to Ericsson for a number of network upgrade projects. The deal will see the Swedish vendor upgrade the operator's 2G and 3G infrastructure, and supply LTE equipment.

As well as LTE Extending coverage, Telekom Austria has therefore been busy upgrading its backhaul network with fiber technology.

The company said two-thirds of its base stations have been overhauled, Which includes 250 located in the Austrian capital Vienna.

"By year-end 2012, a total of 400 base stations will be connected via fiber-optic technology, enabling higher data rates and Considerably shorter response times for Internet queries," said Telekom Austria.